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Stereophile May 2018

1st Edition

Art Dudley's New Listening Room: a Binaural Video
The real star of this video is my dog, Chatter Dudley, an 8-year-old Jack Russell Terrier with a fierce fondness for Herb Reichert (they had met once before), and who had Jana Dagdagan saying, by the end of the day, "I wish I had a dog."

Los Angeles Audio Show Cancelled!!!
The Los Angeles Audio Show (LAAS), scheduled for June 8-10 in Orange County, opposite the John Wayne International Airport at the former sites of T.H.E. Show, seems to have been cancelled.

"Do you know the HoloAudio Spring DAC?" I told him I didn't, but obviously should. "It's a ladder DAC, and a lot of my customers use either it or the Schiit Yggdrasil."

Luxman L-509X integrated amplifier
We're well past the day when the sound of top-tier tube amplifiers can be described as "syrupy" or "too warm" or producing "soft bass." Equally true, solid-state designs have reached a level of maturity at which "sweetness," "fluidity," and "flow" are similarly applicable descriptors, thus smashing the cliche of "cold transistor sound."

Miles & Trane, The Final Tour: Copenhagen on LP
The Final Tour, Volume 6 of Columbia Legacy's Miles Davis Bootleg Series--documenting Miles' quintet, featuring John Coltrane, live in Europe in March 1960--is one of the most revelatory new-old jazz albums in recent years.

Mark Levinson No.534 power amplifier
When I reviewed the Mark Levinson No.536 monoblock, I said that its sound quality was second to none. However, its stratospheric price of $30,000/pair unnerved me--only seven of the 35 top-rated solid-state power amplifiers listed in the April 2017 edition of Stereophile's "Recommended Components" cost more, and a similar number (not the same models) deliver more power into 8 ohms.

Music in the Round #91: Parasound Halo A 52+
For some years now, I've tried to free myself from playing physical media and get all my music organized on a server. It's not that I don't enjoy handling and playing discs, but it's almost impossible to keep track of them.

NAD Masters Series M32 DirectDigital D/A integrated amplifier
When I asked NAD for a sample of their Masters Series M50.2 digital music player, which I reviewed in the December 2017 issue, they also sent me a Masters Series M32 DirectDigital integrated amplifier, which had also been introduced at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show.